Hush : Shout : Song
by Sinead Rivka
Summary: .:Movieverse:. Based off of my own observations at Botcon 2007. When we were first allowed into the room where Optimus sat waiting to receive us, what was really being said? Part Three: If he doesn't have someone to snark at, Ratchet clearly woolgathers.
1. HUSH

Hush  
By Sinead

_**Autbor's Note:** Hit a quick bout of inspiration, and I have to write about it._

.o.O.o.

Quietness.

That's what there was around him. There was a pocket of quiet that refused to be breached by the public. It was a hush, a silence around his metal form, sealing him off from the rest of the room. It was something so very odd to watch and listen to the soft cries of wonder and exultation that escaped the lips of those who walked into the room, wandering in there to slowly approach.

Slowly . . . quietly . . . tenderly. It was as if they _knew_ that he was really there. But of course they wouldn't know. Couldn't know. They had no idea that he had come.

There came a whisper so very soft that one would never understand it had they possessed human, normal hearing. It was one that he had heard so many times before this weekend, one that he still was trying to understand.

"Thank you."

They thanked him, this metal creature, but for what?

"Thank you . . . for being there for me."

But he had never been there. He was a childhood fantasy, a toy that was oft-discarded and traded in for a newer piece of plastic and metal. He was an old dream that was left in the wake of brighter, newer, more mature things.

"Thank you for being my hero."

Aaah.

"Thank you for being my father . . . when I didn't have one."

So.

"Thank you."

All these voices ran in a hushed tone, each individual's unique tones rising and falling in a song that had but two common words, yet many verses and choruses.

There was a feeling around many of these individuals that oft came from a long night of crying. There was the echoes of true peace that was awaiting them . . . it echoed around the blue paint and the chrome fender. This unique peace rested upon him as if he were the one who supplied it, the one who held it within his metaphorical hands and let it mist down among those who walked around him.

But this peace did not come from him.

It came from those who were able to identify with him, whether he was their brother, uncle . . .

Father.

They were taking pictures around him, against him. Some sat upon the steps to his cab, some stood upon them. Some stood beside his grill. Some leaned against his grill. Some just stared at him. Some ran their hands along him from fender to bumper, wanting to take in as much of him as they possibly could. Young ladies in ripped jeans and t-shirts with various insignias actually crouched down to see if he had an engine, giggling at innuendos their friends were saying about their actions. They wanted to see if he was _real_.

An older man walked up to him, just watching the light play off of the chrome, off of the shimmering paint. His face was lined with many years of character, but the kind eyes of one who had seen many years of hardship, but also many, many smiles. This man then rested his hand upon the grill softly not saying a single thing before being called off for an interview.

The doors closed, the lights turned off.

He was alone.

He waited.

Everything was quiet.

And Optimus Prime sighed, settling lower upon his chassis, shifting himself minimally to release pressure in a few of his hydraulic systems. He smiled inwardly as he accessed all that he could about the different faces he had seen today. Some were just people off of the street who had no connections with the Transformers recorded. Some were artists for the genre whose work was nothing short of amazing to the Autobot. Some wrote stories that amused him, comforted him in their tenderness and simplicity. Some wrote stories that made him want to know these humans, to know and understand where they were coming from so that he could see what other kinds of writing that they were capable of.

And a few were actors.

Optimus sighed again, this time in contentment and not in weariness. No matter what happened and what went on during this weekend, no matter how many fingerprints were left upon his chrome, or how many times he was stepped on, the Autobot was glad that he had decided to replace the original truck that had been towed in this direction.

He began to wonder what kind of conniptions Ironhide and Ratchet would get into once they realized that he was going to be late to the meeting set up for the next night. And then the leader let himself chuckle a little as he realized that he would rather be here, listening to those who had looked up to them for most of their lives. He didn't need the ego boost. He didn't need them to affirm him. He needed to understand their culture in the wake of the loss of Jazz. Bumblebee was still recovering from the grief that none of the elder bots would show, and was still sheltering himself for the time in California with Sam.

Optimus Prime eagerly awaited the next day of this odd little convention named Botcon. Just before he allowed himself to drift into a recharge cycle, he wondered who he would see on the morrow . . .


	2. SHOUT

Shout  
By Sinead

_**Author's Note:**__ I've gotten so much feedback about __Hush__, but until this point, I had never been able to really figure out how to do another story that was tied into the same universe where Transformers and our current universe somehow are combined. I don't know the details, I'm not going to try to explain it away. Use your imagination. Thank you for your patience, for those who have been waiting two years for this story. I hope that I don't disappoint._

.o.O.o.

Being in California with Sam was at times odd and peaceful.

They weren't doing anything other than simply being around each other on this particular, peculiar day. The innocent and brave little human was soothing to the warrior's Spark. The little fleshling had a unique sense about him that really tied into the way that a mechanical mind seemed to work. It was very odd, disconcerting, unsettling.

They were watching the clouds together.

Life had become very interesting.

Interesting upon the level that had caused Bumblebee to change his alt mode frequently to avoid detection. Interesting enough to cause Sam to grow his hair out, often wearing contacts so that he was only dubbed as a lookalike to a certain actor. Interesting upon the level that had them not staying close to home, yet traveling only when necessary.

Interesting on a level that had the United States in a frenzy, no pun intended, about the second movie of a particular fandom.

Interesting on the level that had them curious, and yet very under the radar about everything that was piquing their mutual interest.

The yellow mech's face couldn't smile, but his optics could. They were warm as his mind rolled over the events of a day where he had finally persuaded Sam to enter him into a custom car show that was specializing in famous TV and movie car lookalikes. And once the prize money had been mentioned for the top three contestants, Sam had been all for it. Mikaela had been a genius as far as makeup and creating the effect that they were trying very hard to look like their movie impersonations, coming with them to take in and judge their competition.

They had ended up beside a Saleen Mustang who had whirling and flashing police lights, sporting a silver boombox sitting "innocently" on the hood. That had been unnerving, especially since it wasn't Barricade. There had been no energy signatures coming from the black and white Mustang, which helped convince Bee to relax and enjoy the attention given to him. All scans came back negative, that this was just any other human vehicle.

But it had been dually reassuring and amusing to find Ironhide actually sneaking into the car show as well, Lennox needing a bit of makeup, which got Mikaela to help him. Thankfully, Lennox had been directed to park Ironhide beside Bumblebee, which drew a fair amount of people to view the three Transformers vehicles.

There came a moment in the middle of the day that judges came around, watching, enjoying the realism, enjoying the fact that Sam was saying how he had actually compiled clips of the movie's sound effects, as well as many others that he had figured would fit, and then put them on a MP3 disk . . . yadda yadda, impressed the judges, and they came in second. Bee was proud of Sam for just pulling it all outta his back pocket, running his mouth and coming up with some inventive ways of how he achieved a lot of the effects that were purely natural to the Autobot.

Bumblebee then went to the winner's circle for photographs not just with Sam and Kaela, but with anyone who wanted a picture with him. The third place contestant had been a very convincing Ford Mustang GT 500KR with a smooth red double-scanner over the grille, charcoal racing stripes, voice effects, you name it. After scanning the internet, Bumblebee came to the realization that it was another intelligent car after the famous Kitt from the recent Knight Rider show.

First place had been the older version of the same character, catching the judges because of its classic, perfect nature. After a deep scan . . . Bumblebee sent both other cars a greeting, which was quickly and happily replied in kind, starting a conversation between them.

He wasn't the only "intelligent car" that was having fun entering in car shows.

"Bumblebee, why don't you talk?"

Chirping, coming back to the present, Bumblebee looked upwards, where his charge was laying in the grass. Their heads had been together, feet pointing away from each other. He didn't answer for a long time, just looking at the boy before he actually got eye-contact in return. Shrugging, he held his hands up over his head, studying them. He didn't answer.

He didn't like to talk anymore.

"C'mon, man, we've been around each other for three years, right? I mean, it's not like you and I don't know each other by now. I mean, if you don't want to talk, that's cool, but I really would just like to know why you don't even answer a simple question verbally. It's not annoying, but, you know, it's just a little tough on the rest of us. We really want to know what you're thinking, what's going on in your mind."

Lowering his hands and looking up at his little human, Bee blinked once, then hefted what Sam called one of his "monster sighs," ones that really refreshed all the air through his system, cooling himself before he launched into speech.

He got a triumphant smile from the Witwicky boy.

Bumblebee thought about his words carefully and spoke softly. "Oft times, there is no need _to_ speak."

"But you're suffering the worst when you're not talking. C'mon, man, don't deny it."

That just put a bee into his metaphorical bonnet. "And _how_ you would know this, Witwicky?"

The young man who had faced down a murderous Decepticon wasn't even fazed by his Guardian's irritation. He rolled over to sit up cross-legged in front of Bee's face. "I don't know. But I know it. It's just something that I notice. Mikaela doesn't always have to be the one who has intuition all the time. I get it too, you know? Besides. I spend most of the day with you, and love knowing more about your culture and how you got to be who you are and why and I just . . . I just realized lately that I don't know any more about you than any random Transformers fan out there."

_I don't know any more about you than any random Transformers fan out there._

Bumblebee sat up swiftly, looking down at the boy. His boy, his charge, his responsibility to keep safe and educate. And he had been failing at educating the kid.

So he began without any preamble.

"The word 'education' always has had the same connotation and the same root words in my language as the word 'shout.' Teachers always had to out-shout, out-talk their often very loud and talkative students." Bumblebee's optics warmed up again, and he leaned in to rest one finger upon his charge's shoulder. "But I believe that other than myself, you have to be one of the most verbose of students that I have ever met."

"Good. So that means that you're going to have to out-talk me. Which means I get to hear you talk more. By the way, why haven't you gotten to talk with Ratchet about giving you a mouth? I mean, it's not like it's weird or anything, but it's still a bit hard to catch what you're saying at times, since you're—"

Bumblebee lost all patience and roared, "Primus, Sam! Shut the slag up and let me _speak_!"

Samuel James Witwicky blinked up at his Guardian, but his brown eyes were bright and smiling. "So I guess that Ratchet was right in saying that you had been raised by Ironhide."

The first sirens were heard, causing both to look towards the road with dual curses. Didn't matter what the sirens were about, they had to move on anyway.

Laughing as he was scooped up, carried up to the road as his Guardian rolled into his newest alt mode, opening the driver's side door. Jumping into the seat, feeling the door close after his butt, Sam grinned and let a whoop loose as they sped off clearly over the speed limit. "Hey, so why the Pontiac alt mode?"

Keeping to his promise to be more windy and louder that his charge, Bumblebee replied, "Because Jazz had been a Pontiac, albeit the smallest one to accommodate his small stature. I find the Firebird to be quite sleek, and it suits me. I'll change it back once that blasted movie is done and through with. Now shut up and look like you're driving. I've got a lot more to tell you."


	3. SONG

Song  
By Sinead

_**Author's Note:**__ This is the second try at writing this. First try turned into a drabble, which I'll post after I post this up, because I realized something quite astounding that is a major loophole for the I'm discovering that it's not about the movies, but rather . . . it's about different emotions that we feel that are connected with Transformers. So, here's another glimpse into those emotions, thoughts and feelings. I hope that I continue to do them justice, even as I continue to break the "fourth wall" of Transformers and continue to keep it as real as possible._

_TL;DR version: Thank you for your patience, TF is only as important as the emotions we attach to it, and I hope that I can keep the tenderness and the realism in this story. Cheers!_

.o.

He was singing again.

Chuckling at the bass tones smoothly emanating from the far corner of his medbay, Ratchet didn't stop moving as he continued cleaning up and organizing after having to do some routine maintenance on Bumblebee, who then promptly took off with Sam to go to Colorado.

The medic sighed, resting his hands upon the berth and soaking in the song. Granted, it was a human one, as were most of the songs he had been singing recently, but it was a song nevertheless. It was just another sign that even after all that had happened, he was willing and able to move forward. Thankfully, he was out of sight of the other mech sharing the room with him.

With all the publicity that the movies had been producing, Ratchet knew for a _fact_ that it was a good thing that they had been doing everything to keep under the radar. If they didn't have the government to deal with, they would simply have to be dealing with the fanbase. That wasn't a pretty thought at all. He had _seen_ what some of those fans wrote. Optimus had seen some of the older, quality writings as of 2007 when the first movie came out, but afterwards . . . things ran downhill, and while Ratchet was no prude, some of the things he had read had given him quite the shock. Reproducing and the act of creating a new Spark simply didn't _work_ that way.

He began to mentally tick of who was where so that he could distract himself from remembering some of those awful . . . what were they called? Smut fics. Ironhide was in Texas with Lennox, his wife and daughter, on a ranch that was large enough to hide any itinerant Autobots. Bumblebee and Sam were going from place to place, not settling long enough to be known, doing under-the-table jobs to survive. Mikayla was going to college on the east coast under the name Victoria Smyth and was dating a nice boy by the name of Alessandro, and was thinking about going to college abroad in Italy because of him.

Ratchet and Optimus were hiding semi-underground in a decommissioned missile silo. It helped that they were also inhabiting part of the hollowed-out mountain as well. Sideswipe and the Twins Junior had arrived, and the one of the older set was proving to be a great help with keeping the youngsters in line while they were educated about Earth and other important subjects. Until they were level-headed enough to go out on their own and act responsibly, they were staying right where Prime and his CMO could modify their behaviors.

"Keeping the youngsters in line" usually involved not-so-carefully tossing them outside and into at least one boulder once night fell, so that they wouldn't be seen wrestling with each other or another mech. This was one point where Ratchet missed the other half of the Terrible Twins. Sunstreaker would have leveled both of them for a single scratch to his paint. Sideswipe had given up his paint and vibrant red coloration because of the damage the coat would often take because of his fights and mock-fights with the Twins Junior and Bumblebee, respectively.

But enough of them.

Ratchet enjoyed listening to the song drifting from the reclined bot behind the curtain. It wasn't much in the way of privacy right now, but out of necessity and for everyone's sanity, they had put Skids and Mudflap into their own room. Setting up walls to define rooms had proven to be harder than strategically knocking walls down to create larger rooms, and the med bay was the second-largest and the first-warmest room. The first-largest room had been delegated to being the commons.

". . . Salivili hipput tupput tapput äppyt tipput hilijalleen," came the bass voice again, causing Ratchet to bark a laugh when he searched the internet for the lyrics.

He called over, "Are you _that_ bored with the English language that you've switched to Finnish already? And isn't that song supposed to be sung by a female with a _much_ higher vocal range?"

His only reply was the stubborn opening line of the next verse. "Ievan suu oli vehnäsellä ko immeiset onnee toevotti . . ."

Laughing, finding the song "Ievan Polkka" highly fitting for the mech, Ratchet returned to his organizing and cleaning. He was _not_ going to have a dirty medical bay when more arrivals came. He already had warning that Arcee and Jolt were going to be landing soon, and had a hunch that Prowl was not too far behind. He'd be glad when the tactician landed. Maybe he would be coming with his fellow Praxian, Bluestreak. It wouldn't hurt to have their sniper on Earth.

He was, as the humans put it, woolgathering. Smiling at how relative peace was proving to be detrimental to his mental state, he moved around the screen to stare at the mech still lying upon his back and singing, a datapad held above his head as he perused the internet. The song closed, and the mech murmured, "So."

"So. Finding anything to your liking?"

"The conspiracy sites about us are starting up again, but I have a feeling that it's funded by the United States government. The security levels that they have up around the servers and the ghost-drive servers are, by our standards, archaic. However, by their standards, it's tightly secure."

"Funny little creatures," Ratchet remarked with a chuckle.

"I _could_ overwhelm their servers, crash the site, take the information I want and leave in under as second, but that's no way to be learning about who has been stalking us." The grin upon the grey metal face was contagious, and Ratchet found himself chuckling.

"Oh, how the mighty have fallen."

"Hah, not likely. You've known me since before the war started, and you can see through the image I give to everyone around us."

"Mm. So, tell me about these rumor sites. Who have they targeted _this_ time?" Taking the stool beside the berth, Ratchet contorted his torso and angled his head to be able to look at the screen.

"Where, actually."

"Ah, yes. I remember that place. One of the landing sites. Mine, actually."

"They're starting to link those together, but at the same time, they're looking in some of the wrong spots. These three," one finger highlighted the indicated pictures, "are nothing more than human artillery tests, caught by an odd camera angle and during either daybreak or sunset to add depth to the shadows."

"So how close are the humans to our tail?"

He got an amused look in reply as the datapad was rested upon the broad chest. "Think of us like one of their human pets. Let's say . . . a Doberman. This group is like a kitten who thinks themselves bigger and badder than they really are, trying to swipe their little claws into our tail, leaping up and _almost_ getting it here or there . . . but the Doberman's tail is wagging as he's watching something else."

"Or finds the kitten amusing."

"Essentially."

"Interesting way of putting it. Have they caught on to Bumblebee?"

"Not that I know of. _You're_ mentioned as a possible alien, but in all honesty, all they have are long shots until someone gets true footage of us, or makes official contact. And with the way this country is being run right now and with the internal problems that they're experiencing, if they were to get their hands on one of us, I'd say that it would be a _very_ bad thing."

"Ratchet!"

Sighing at the call, he turned and yelled back, "In here!"

"Mudflap decided that trying to piss off Optimus was a good idea, and he needs some repairs!"

"Oh, for Primus' sake, Sideswipe, wasn't that _your_ job?"

"I know! I'm insulted!" The silver head poked around the curtain. "How're you feeling, old men?"

"Once my frame's back ta full capacity, kid, I'm gonna wipe that smile offa yo' face with my _foot_." The voice that shook the air with its bass tones seemed out-of-place coming from the little mech, but at the same time, it was a threat that wasn't to be taken lightly. Jazz knew how to fight, and in his irritation, his accent came back full-force. His frame was slow in repairing itself since he had been revived due to Ratchet carefully using a piece of the AllSpark shard. Apparently, his jolted revival had caused Ratchet, Ironhide _and_ Optimus to all fritz out while he fell into a restorative recharge cycle.

"Unfortunately in my case, he's just telling the truth and being a nuisance about it," Ratchet replied as he stood and shook his head. "Once Optimus has cooled off, I'll have him come in for an update briefing on what you've told me."

"Good plan, Doc. Oh, an' give that little piece of slag your worst. Ain' nobody allowed to copy Sideswipe's stupidity."

"Sadly," the other silver mech replied in a deadpan voice, "neither of them has Sunstreaker's personality. Double the stupid."

Laughing, Jazz went back to reading, already humming another song. It was to this background melody that Ratchet the Hatchet turned to the young set of twins and gave them enough of a chewing-out that they realized that if they were ever going to survive living incognito, they first had to learn how to survive the mechs that were in charge.

Jazz listened to the whines and heard the wrenches flying. Singing to himself, he grinned. It was good that those children would help keep Ratchet sharp and on his toes. As Sideswipe came around the curtain to settle in the spare cot/berth beside his own, pulling out another datapad to do his own searches, he heard the low murmur, "It's good to hear Ratchet singing the praises of someone else's lack of a logic computer for a change. He'd almost started to become docile."

Jazz couldn't help but laugh, returning to his singing with a renewed gusto. Ratchet sang an interesting song, that was absolutely true.

.o.

_**Closing Note:**__ I figured that if a decent-sized shard of the AllSpark could bring Megatron back to life, with his massive body, then a much-smaller shard of the same thing could bring Jazz back. It's baffling as to why they didn't do this for Jazz if they theorized that it was possible._


End file.
